follow tali on ...

the everyman memoirs

It’s early. The part of the relationship where he sends me flowers and I shave my legs a lot. I’m sure both of these will change as time goes on, but for now, it’s that delicious beginning I spoke so fondly of in Fooled. The part where you’re not far enough in it yet to have botched it/discovered a dealbreaker/gotten cold feet. The part where you’ve got nothing on him but unadulterated hope.

It does become harder as we get older, I think. Harder to give up the “me”-ness we get so attached to as long-term singletons. Harder still to not become pessimistic about love, even as you’re beginning a new relationship. Because odds are, it won’t work out. If you’re a long-term singleton, it literally never has. It’s not so much the trite notion of it only taking one that buoys me up, even though it does. It’s that hoping each new relationship is The One is really the only chance we have that it ever will be.

So try. Don’t worry about keeping other options open, about hedging your bets, about back-up plans. Don’t worry about the last time, about all the times, about the time yet to come when you might lose him. Don’t worry about time at all, or eggs, or about what you think you should want. Want this. Nothing else. And maybe you’ll get it.

Picture booking a trip to Cleveland for game 6 of the NBA finals and then realizing with your team down 3-0 that game 6 is likely not to happen. Picture changing your plans at the last minute and booking the last seat on a plane to Cleveland for game 4. Picture lugging the dresses and heels and suits you wore over a week-long work trip with you across the country, as the last minute-ness of the change in plans doesn't allow you to go home first.

Picture upsetting your ex's family by asking in this state of last minute-ness (ie. no hotels available) if you can crash with them for a night. Picture sobbing in an airport bathroom when you realize the door to their friendship is no longer open, even though this is probably as it always should have been.

Picture getting pulled over in Cleveland and trying to get out of a ticket when you say you're here for "the game" and have a California drivers license. Picture the Cavs shirt you're wearing saving the day. Because it does.

Picture winning.

Of course, I could tell you to picture it all falling apart in the next game anyway, but that really doesn't matter. Because if you can picture 20,000+ fans erupting in unison after each (record-breaking) three-pointer, if you can picture being unable to keep yourself from jumping to your feet every possession, if you can picture the glee in watching Steph Curry momentarily being made to look like a lost little boy, if you can picture hope and belief in their most unadulterated forms ("Cavs in se-ven!"), then you will have gotten what you came for.

And then it was Valentine’s Day. Well, almost. Seriously though, I’m not sure how this happened. A friend mentioned I hadn’t blogged yet in 2017 and I didn’t believe him. True that January was taken over by book preparations, so, there’s that, plus I’ve just spent 10 days in Arizona at a couple of jewelry shows. (Post to follow at some point.)

But back to Valentine’s Day. Because I sort of forgot about it until walking into a donut shop while on the road and seeing trays of heart-shaped donuts. I bought one. Naturally. And then I started thinking about love. It’s not a huge priority for me, really. Which seems odd to say. I certainly miss love, and hope I find it again, but it’s not something I’m willing to devote a lot of time to. Mostly because the odds of a return on investment being at all worthwhile always seem pretty slim. And I’d rather spend my time writing books and perusing gems than going on crappy dates.

I read a book recently that proved what I have always suspected: there aren’t enough men to go around. Or, more accurately, there aren’t enough college-educated men to match the number of college-educated women. It’s actually causing a big problem at universities, where the male students have so many options that the term “golden cock syndrome” exists, whereas the female students will not only struggle to secure one of the available men, but will also struggle to find one that isn’t taking full advantage of the syndrome’s benefits (ie. tons of women wanting to have sex with you).

Not looking to make a generalization here, I’d just like to point out that I have observed, even well past my college years, that golden cock syndrome is still alive and well in the adult male community. It can be hard to find someone who’s interested in monogomy, and with so many other women also seeking a man, I’ve met many men who are consequently not very motivated to make sure the experience you have with them is a positive one. Because when you’re in high demand (meaning you are desirable and in short supply), burning bridges isn’t really that concerning. It’s the same reason why Disney handled me with such little care back when I was offered an internship. It was a crappy deal, but if I didn’t take it, there’d be a line of others who would. So it didn’t matter to them that my overall experience was negative and that I ultimately turned them down. It affected them and their ability to fill that internship ZERO MUCH.

It’s gotten so rare for me to be impressed after a date that when it happened last week, word spread to my family at such speed that I received calls and/or texts from all of my siblings the next day. The hope! Don’t get me wrong. I have it too. The hope. I hope for a man so crazy about me that he doesn’t want anyone else. And I’m not saying there aren’t men out there who are as decent as they are interested in being faithful. I know they exist. They’re just harder to find.

In the case of last week’s date, the feeling did not appear to be mutual, which, of course, is the other side of this equation. Meaning even if you find a man you could be interested in, he has to think the same thing about you, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. My track record would, in fact, suggest that I am exactly NO ONE’S cup of tea. But, again, there is hope. And always will be. In the meantime, I’m having another donut.

Remember how I said I wasn't sure I wanted him back? Well something about seeing the James jerseys around town, the non-stop chatter and speculation, the various "come home" pleas, Michael Symon's promise of an LBJ burger. Something about all of this made me start hoping in spite of myself. Such that when I heard the news today (I was half naked in an Anthropologie dressing room, by the way, and simply *had* to refresh my phone in case the announcement had been made since my previous check a little while before), I could not stop smiling.

This city loved him so much, and it seems we still do. It seems *I* still do. And considering we (myself included) were the very ones who flocked to the Q when the Heat were in town simply so we could boo every time he had the ball--and he has the ball a lot--this is part confusing, part sickening, but mostly I think it is hopeful. To know that we--all of us, LeBron included--can get over ourselves and move on. Move forward. Move up. Move home. Goodbye, #1 lottery pick. See you never.

Remember this post? Hopes and Dreams Well, this is the night. The night my wish gets shot into the sky at midnight in the middle of Times Square. And so I'm thinking about wishes. About hope. And also about resolutions. About resolving. To stop. To start. To move on. To never forget. To be happy. To make a change. Whatever it is, do it. Do it this year.

I snapped this pic over the weekend because wishes greatly exacerbate my sentimentality. There's just something about wishes. They're personal, oftentimes they're private, and they represent what we hope for most in our lives. In the professional world, "Hope is not a strategy" has been beaten into my head, and probably for good reason. Hope gets nothing done, it doesn't bring results. But wishes are a different animal, and many times the things we wish/hope for are things we don't have the ability to bring about in any way; things on which we cannot necessarily affect change. And in these instances, hope is perhaps the only strategy we've got.

When in NYC a couple of months ago, I went to the Times Square museum. From the replica of the New Year's Eve ball to the relics and costumes from various Broadway shows, it's a colorful place. But the most striking thing in there (honestly it looks like the beginnings of a parade float) is the Hopes and Dreams wall. It's little squares of confetti paper stuck to the wall, each bearing a handwritten wish from someone who's come through. The best part about these confetti squares is they are what gets shot into the air on New Year's Eve when the clock strikes twelve. All that confetti you see sailing through the air on TV? It's people's wishes, and something about that made me clutch a hand to my heart and steady myself just to absorb the impact to my sentimentality scale.

Of course I wrote down a wish, something I will never get, something not even hope can bring me, but I'm one of those dewey-eyed dopes who believes it's important--even if you know you'll never get what you want--for the universe to know how you'd like things to go if it were up to you. Silly, I know. Pointless, I know. But still. When my wish sails through the sky at the moment the new year begins, I hope it settles near the feet of someone who reads it and hopes that I got my wish.